Euphrates Volcano Chief Commander: ISIS Suffered A Major Breakdown on All Fronts
In an exclusive interview, Euphrates Volcano Chief Commander Haqi Kobani says ISIS suffered a major breakdown on all fronts.
Mutlu Civiroglu www.twitter.com/mutludc
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Mr. Kobani, the day before, you announced the entire liberation of Ain Isa. What is the latest situation in Ain Isa and on other fronts?
Haqi Kobani: ISIS have launched extensive operations at a number of locations in recent days. Their aim was to stop the operations we recently conducted. They attacked in Ain Isa and on all the fronts but ended up suffering a major breakdown. As we shared with the public opinion two days ago, 140 gangs were killed and corpses of 94 of them are held by our side. These figures do not include those killed within the past three days. We took Ain Isa under full control two days ago. The night after, they attempted once again for an attack but were repelled.
Some media agencies have recently reported the fall of Ain Isa to ISIS. Was this true, why was such a news spread?
Haqi Kobani: We didn’t understand yet what sort of media agencies those spreading this news are. The entire world is, unfortunately, not siding with revolution. Half of the world is supporting ISIS, while the other half is against it. They reported the fall of Ain Isa to ISIS as propaganda against us. ISIS has taken some points in recent days but the strategic points were always under our control. And, we re-seized those points back from ISIS which thereafter attempted suicide attacks with 5-6 attackers the day before. We killed them yet much before they got close to us. The ISIS thugs who can make no progress or achievement over us are being inflicted heavy blows by both the coalition strikes from the air and our offensives from the ground. They are continuously trying to keep us occupied with an aim to stop our operations and hinder us from making further advances.
Further advances towards where?
Haqi Kobani: We are on the Sarrin side at the moment and hold all the strategic points where, clashes are also taking place. ISIS is making an effort to weaken us everywhere. Yet, it is not happening as they wish.
Is the expansion of the front from the Euphrates to Hasaka not making things more difficult for you?
Haqi Kobani: Not at all. We have taken every precaution. We have organized ourselves and taken measures in accordance with the fronts.
Officials in Washington have in recent days voiced very positive statements about the YPG and Euphrates Volcano. Are you having any opportunity to follow the messages given there?
Haqi Kobani: Of course! We closely follow every single word and development. YPG has proved its power to the whole world by now. The greatest proof has been in Kobane where we believed we would succeed when there were only two neighborhoods left under our control. There is no force other than Kurdish forces that can act together with the coalition today. We have no aircraft, but the coalition is supporting us with strikes. Coalition doesn’t have a ground force, but we are a powerful force on the ground for them. This reality has also been seen by the coalition which is therefore acting together with the YPG. Everyone has seen that victory against ISIS could be achieved only this way.
You have said you are around Sarrin at the moment. What are you expecting to happen in the battlefield in the coming days?
Haqi Kobani: In this regard, we currently have no information available to share with the public opinion. We want no fuss to emerge. Yet, we will take every single area we are clashing in now, this is a truth beyond argument. No matter what ISIS may resort to do with bomb-laden vehicles; we are determined to take control of the areas witnessing a battle at the moment. ISIS has detonated 9-10 cars within the past several days. This, however, doesn’t matter as we have taken our precautions and are doing our work.
Some media reports argued ill-treatment by your side against Arabs and Turkmens. What do you have to say in this regard, what is your relationship with other minorities?
Haqi Kobani: This kind of reports appearing on media have nothing to do with the truth. We are acting on the basis of fraternity of peoples and implementing no different practices on any of them. Our aim is a democratic Syria. As we have recently highlighted in some statements, which we don’t know if reached to the media and people as we have been taking part in operations, we conceive of an operation room which consists of Turkey, ISIS and the regime. Their media agencies, Rûdaw, Orient TV, Al-Jazeera are against the revolution in Syria. Rûdaw and Orient TV pretend to be embracing the revolution here but, yet, they are against it. As we fight and achieve success against ISIS, they are writing exact opposite things. There exists a success of YPG and they are not pleased with it.
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Translated into English by Berna Özgencil https://twitter.com/bzgncl
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